Tablets form the basis for hardware that's lighter and
more economical than standard POS equipment. Photo courtesy of ShopKeep POS
available to any merchant with a reliable Internet connection. Th e in-store functional aspect of Square is called Square Register. Th is converts any smart portable device into a cash register/card reader with a simple, small accessory that plugs into the device's phone jack and allows cards to be swiped through the other end.
Th e card processing function, called Square Card Reader, is
BEST OF BOTH Jack Groot, a coff eehouse owner in Holland, Mich. and
columnist for this magazine, combines Square with a conventional POS system to get the best of both worlds. He uses the POS system to record a credit or debit card sale but, instead of processing the transaction through that system, does it through Square Card Reader to get the lower processing rate. He estimates that using Square for the transactions saves him $8,400 a year. Groot is open to the possibility of using Square Register to
replace his existing POS hardware. "Let's just say, once Square has fi gured out what a coff ee shop needs in a POS system completely, POS systems will disappear,
and security. Because they depend on an Internet connection to function, there's always the possibility that access will be disrupted, or worse—compromised. "Th ere is some comfort in the old system of having everything happen in-house," says Sam Sobolewski, whose
Th e biggest concerns with cloud systems are accessibility " he wrote in an e-mail.
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Bartavelle Coff ee and Wine Bar was due to open in September in Berkeley, Calif. Sobolewski went with ShopKeep POS instead of Square partly because it seemed to off er better security, as he experienced personally when he worked for an outlet of Joe the Art of Coff ee in New York City.
FAIL-RESISTANT Marketers of cloud-based systems acknowledge the concerns but point out that their systems will retain basic functions even
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